In My Home This Week: The Great Unknown

In my home this week, I...

have altered two of our main living areas. I don't know...I just plain don't know. The truth is that I was perfectly happy with the arrangement of things and the house felt peaceful and calm. People obviously felt at home here. All we wanted to do was put down new flooring. When that first quote was so extremely high over what we had planned to pay, we were caught up in this cycle of change that just keeps on going. This past week, I emptied the living room of most of the things that gave it some sort of personality. I emptied the bookcases and when we vacuumed under them and went to put them back, they wouldn't go back exactly as they had been. Not mind you because they didn't fit but they no longer looked right. We ended up spacing the three evenly along the wall. And that meant moving the toy box and John was enamored with the new placement of it and said that was where he really wanted it to stay. Friday, Mama came by for coffee and I sat in the dining room looking at the toy box on the entry way wall and you know what? It's perfect. It needs to be right there. Darn it. It doesn't fit in with my plans at all but it's so obviously right that I won't be moving it.

I brought home a quilt from Mama's last week. Not an antique but a pretty new cotton one. I put it on the guest bed and then found myself changing out curtains. Now I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose at least one piece of furniture in that room; perhaps I'll swap it with one in an another room...Changes just keep presenting themselves.

For some reason this past week, John got this notion to hang the TV on the wall. It's not something I ever thought he'd want to do. He researched mounts, looked at prices, sizes, etc. We had an appointment on Wednesday afternoon and he said after we'd go buy the mount. Honestly? I thought he'd choose not to do so. When we got in the store and the price was higher than he'd anticipated and the one he wanted was stupid crazy priced, I thought we'd end going home without it. No. He found an alternative that was higher than he'd planned to pay but was an acceptable price. And he wasted no time at all in going about hanging it on the wall.

The old entertainment center was now obsolete. So we moved it from the room. What we were left with was a messy tangle of cables and cords. Obviously we'd made a change that wasn't quite finished. John looked at the tangle all evening and rued the mess of it. When I rose the next morning he was on the floor winding cables and tucking them here and there and still they looked a mess. John asked me to look for a corner cabinet of some sort. I went online but what we found was so obviously not going to work that I gave up. We looked at the space a bit longer. I really wanted to expand the seating in the living room and had hoped we'd fit two chairs in the space. A cabinet was surely needed with the DVD player, the satellite receivers, the router. The DVDs would have to go somewhere...Was my dream of extra seating going to go bust?

"What if we moved that short bookcase there? You know, the one in my closet" "I think it's too low...What if we moved the cabinet from the bathroom into the living room?", I replied. John didn't answer. He just got up and went and moved the cabinet into the living room. Wow. We got cables sorted out, realized this choice would allow us to hook up the DVD player Samuel and Bess bought us when they moved out. Fewer cables were visible. I looked at the space and said to John, "Come move my chair to that corner..." He walked into the kitchen sitting and looked at the chair. He knows how very much I've enjoyed that seating in that kitchen each morning. It's my first stop on our usual mornings at home, with a cup of coffee, my Bible, my journals, my devotional. "Won't you miss it?" I answered truthfully, "Yes, I will...but it needs to move to that space in the living room." We set the chair in it's new place and stood back and looked. It was perfect. Darn.

So now the kitchen sitting area is empty, the living room is very altered, the guest room is changing again, and the front entry is not what it was. I've only cleared one set of books from a shelf in the bedroom but I have to wonder just what is going to happen in that room when we start moving things out in earnest.

I don't know what this house is going to end up being. I don't know anything at all. I'm just the energy that moves things to where they want to be. And apparently John is a designer of sorts in his own right. I've a funny feeling we aren't done, yet. He's jokingly said we should move the dresser...or maybe he was perfectly serious. Perhaps we should. Oh dear.

...I plan meals:

Brats in Bakery Buns, Caramelized onions, German Potato Salad, Green Salad, Soft Baked Pretzels, Beer Cheese and Horseradish Mustard, Dutch Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice creamand family and grandbabies joined us. The menu was a huge hit even though I'd never made the beer cheese or the pretzels before and I wasn't crazy over the particular potato salad recipe I chose. What was fun was hearing Josh say "C'mon Tay..." and her giggling as she ran behind him, the multiple conversations between family, the roar of football game in the background and just the usual chaos and wonder of it all. Bliss.

two days on my own, one of those out with MamaChicken with Lemon BBQ sauce, Waldorf Salad, Brussels Sprouts, Roasted Butter Nut Squash

Definitely going to be mopping the kitchen. You've no idea how many spills occurred with the two littles running about...or maybe you do...

...I plan my leisure:

Yes, I really do mean to play with the genealogy stuff once more because this past week I had one of those lovely unexpected things happen. Three individuals had uploaded information to a site that tied into my family tree there and some of this information was elusive stuff that only a close family member would have...Hooray! A breakthrough! I mean to do plenty of work in this area this week.

Enjoy my family visits. I'm writing this post ahead of time because I'll be busy from Friday evening possibly through Sunday morning with family coming in. Italics comments are footnotes of today. This day together is Bess' brainchild, to get the little cousins together at least once a quarter. We're all pretty pleased that it's come together and we've already started discussions for the next visit. We've set the date...Now to start planning and buying ahead since this next visit will be our family holiday together.

5 comments:

Christine
said...

Can you tell me how you make camparini tomatoes with pesto? I'm trying to find a recipe using pesto that my family will like. They love tomatoes so hopefully this would be something they will try. Thanks.

Fun weekend! I love the 'Tay'. Our grands did not get to visit this week because our littlest one has Hand, Foot and Mouth and has been very sick. Yup, that kitchen floor will definitely need mopping. You could go by the sock rule, if it pulls off your socks it needs mopping. :) Grilled brats are a real favorite for family get togethers here, too. We do peppers and onions and oven potato wedges with a chocolate dessert of some kind.

You could quite possibly lay sheet vinyl yourself. Our installer said you can put up to 3 layers of it with out having to tear out the old. He skimmed a layer of cement over to fill the texture first. We have done it in the past with someone to help Hubby. The scary part is cutting it. There are tutorials online. That new plank vinyl is probably easier than sheets.

It is being reported that gas stations are closing up because of having no gas here. Looks like we will stay around home as much as possible this week. We have done the grocery shopping and errands and church is only 7 minutes away. Our tanks are full and we will make it last as long as possible.

Menus for the week-S-spaghetti, meat sauce from the freezerM-chicken and rice, KFC coleslawW-hamburger gravy and mashed potatoes, green beans, coleslawT-chicken stir fry, saladF=BBQ chicken thighs--big batch with extras for the freezer, oven potato wedges and coleslawS-homemade pizza for supper and family here for a birthday breakfast for our son in law-homemade cinnamon rolls, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs with diced ham and fruit salad. Our Saturday breakfasts in the screen porch will soon be over for the year. We will use our West Bend Quik Drip for the coffee. It is fun to bring out for company. The grandchildren love to eat in Nana and Poppa's porch. After they are gone we just hose off the floor. :)

Hope you have had a wonderful weekend with family.Praying you will find a reasonable flooring soon. Know it is so frustrating to shop for this type stuff.. Best wishes.The lemon barbeque sauce sounds really good.Have a great week..

I was thinking of this recently too Terri...sounds like you need a little change. To me it would be kind of moving to a new house but staying at home if I changed things up. Kind of fun but yet I want it to be homey too like you. I think my daughter started it for me -she changed her living room totally around. Looks so pretty and new. I need that!

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About Me

For years now I've shared my frugal skills while raising a family. Now we're empty nesters and are looking ahead to those retirement years. These days I'm honing my old frugal skills, learning new things and doing my best to live well today while saving for tomorrow.